GISMONDI, ENRICO. - Jesuit, orientalist, b. in Rome on 20 April 1850, d. there on 7 February 1912. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1869, after completing his studies he went to Beirut in Syria, where he remained from 1879 to 1888 (except for an interval of one year spent at Manresa) as professor of theology at the University of St. Joseph, applying himself at the same time to the study of oriental languages. He then went on to teach them at the Gregorian University in 1888, also holding there the chair of biblical exegesis. From 1910 he also held the chair of oriental languages at the Biblical Institute. He was a consultor of the Congregation of the Index and of the Biblical Commission, and contributed articles to several Roman journals.
Original works: La Bibbia e la sapienza greca (Rome 1894); Linguae Syriacae grammatica et chrestomathia cum glossario (ibid. 1900); Disciplina linguae Hebraicae (ibid. 1907); Linguae Hebraicae grammatica et chrestomathia cum glossario (ibid. 1905). Latin translations: Ebed-Jesu Sobensis carmina selecta ex libro « Paradisus Eden » (Beirut 1888; with the Syriac text); S. Gregorii Theologi liber carminum jambicorum (ibid. 1896; with the Syriac text); Maris, Amri et Silbae de Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria (3 vols., ibid. 1896-99, with the Arabic text).